The present invention is directed to a process for cutting workpieces with a cutting beam such as a pressurized water jet, and, more particularly, to such a process wherein the cutting beam is directed at the workpiece to be processed and the workpiece and the cutting beam are moved relative to one another.
Presently available processes and machine tools for practicing the process are used, for example, to cut the workpiece into a number of parts, to cut it with a predetermined contour, and/or to cut predetermined contours into parts formed from the initial workpiece.
For this purpose, according to one known process using a known machine tool, a cutting beam in the form of a pressurized stream of water and the workpiece to be machined are moved in relation to one another crosswise to the cutting beam. In this way, the cutting beam makes a dividing cut of a predetermined length and in a predetermined cutting direction. To increase processing capacity, it is known to use machine tools that have at least two spaced cutting units connected to at least one source of a cutting beam each of which can emit a cutting beam when in operation, and in which the cutting units and the workpiece to be machined can be moved relative to one another in the cutting direction. Such tooling machines make it possible to produce several spaced parallel dividing cuts concurrently. Thus, for example, on tooling machines with two cutting units, two workpieces can be cut at the same time. However, the cutting speeds at which cuts with high-quality edges can be produced with the known process and the known machine tools need to be increased.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel process for cutting workpieces with a pair of beams, and a machine tool for carrying out this process, by means of which good-quality cut edges can be achieved at a high cutting speed.